Four years later, what a transformation this new game is. It’s full of combat, but Knack’s arsenal of moves is greatly expanded with a punch flurry move, an extendable-arm power shot and more. This time there’s a 34-node upgrade tree that weaponizes Knack’s dodge, speeds up most of his moves and adds some new ones. [Early Impressions - 1/2 through the game]

Playing Sea of Thieves feels a bit like working in a theater before the set has been completely built. There’s plenty of space to goof around and a few swords in the wings to have mock fights with, but none of its quite ready for show time. A lack of features and polish has frustrated some players, but those willing to meet the game halfway will discover a game that’s exciting and pensive in equal measure. Sea of Thieves is as fickle and changeable as the sea itself.

After 10 hours with the game’s campaign and a few more hours messing around with bots on various difficulty settings, I was happy to move on. Some soldiers may love the look and potential challenge enough to stay on the Endeavor a little longer. But for most, Aliens: Fireteam Elite doesn’t bring enough new ideas to the genre to warrant the $59 entry price.

The Life Is Strange team’s latest supernatural teen drama probably didn’t need to be two parts, but its conclusion was worth the wait.

I wanted to like Daemon X Machina, but as I played, I kept wondering how much more fun it might have been if the developers had zeroed in on some of the more enjoyable elements instead of providing so many customization options and wrapping everything in such a convoluted story. There are some genuine bright spots in the gameplay and even some of the ridiculous characters, but there’s honestly just too much of…everything. It should be a good problem to have, but in a world that’s changing for good, Marvelous never truly figured out what they were fighting for.

I feel that Rune Factory 5 gave up a lot of creative maneuverability by shifting from an overhead-view farming sim into a 3D, open-world game. Rigbarth doesn’t have the same intimate fantasy charm, the characters are forgettable, and the world feels emptier than Rune Factory has ever felt. Rune Factory 5 needed a focused creative direction, not open-world freedom. [Impressions]

Tearing away all of the bloat, Yooka-Laylee is a challenging and satisfying platformer. When it focuses on the basics, it succeeds with considerable flair. Yet, these moments arrive in short bursts that are padded out by confusing and hostile design. They point towards a far more enjoyable game than the complete package. The parts are significantly greater than the whole. There’s fun to be had but it doesn’t come easily. And if I never have to collect another shiny again, it’ll be far too soon.

Ultimately, those final moments are the ones I leave Eternights thinking about. Where often the game feels like it’s struggling to execute its own ideas, it’s clear that it at least has ideas. It gets in its own way with what feel like expected genre pressures to undermine itself, but it knows the emotions it wants the player to feel, and they aren’t as superfluous as the gags at characters’ expense it throws out along the way. It makes me hopeful about what this studio might make in the future, because while Eternights may be imperfect, it’s clearly made by a team that wants to create moments like this game’s finale, ideally supported by games that are fully deserving of them. It just needs to work on ironing out all the wrinkles that held this game back.

The word “unfinished” gets thrown around a lot these days, often simply to refer to a game that is lacking in a bit of polish, or is missing a feature or two that fans wanted. But Battlefield 2042 truly feels unfinished, as though every menu screen and transition to a new map is a placeholder for something more final yet to come.

Oninaki comes out of the gate promising, but it doesn’t truly capitalize on its dark themes or religious introspection. The ultimate truths revealed about Oninaki’s world and characters were never enough to really make me feel like cutting through enemy after enemy after enemy was worth it. It’s unfortunate—there are a lot of genuinely cool ideas here, but none of them really makes the game special.

I feel like I’ve spent the majority of this review dogpiling on a game I mostly enjoyed. Maybe that’s because I’m frustrated by the squandered potential smothered under a pile of excess, like someone unwilling to say “when” to the person holding the Olive Garden cheese grater.

Open Roads has no metaphorical light switches and doesn’t allow for so much player freedom or personal expression. With such a strong duo as Tess and Opal leading the game, Open Roads may have been better served as a straight visual novel. But the focus on them also makes picking up objects to unravel the mystery feel lacking. This is a story for the player to witness, not unravel through interaction themselves.

While this new Quiet Place game isn’t the most innovative or scariest game I’ve played, it’s a very well-made and tense adventure that had me more terrified of metal cans and broken glass than any random zombie I’ve encountered in Resident Evil. Who knew trash could be so scary?

It’s an unexpected treat of a game, one that bodes well for the future of the Lego video game series. A rapid-release movie tie-in is a really strange place for innovation, yet here it is.

Marvel’s Avengers isn’t the best comic book game out there, but it’s certainly the best team-based comic book game I’ve played. It’s not simply that it gathers iconic heroes together and lets me become them, but that each one of them is equally enjoyable. When the first couple of minutes of any session is spent picking out which character I want to play as, something has gone wonderfully right, which makes overlooking all the little things I don’t like that much easier.

The Longest Five Minutes presents its basic fantasy tale as a series of flashbacks experienced by its amnesiac main character during the game’s final battle. It takes an otherwise generic retro turn-based RPG and turns it into something special—but it could have been so much more.

Within the context of the series, Shenmue III feels more like connective tissue than a fully functioning organ. There are a few revelations about the larger myth arc, and a one-sided battle with Lan Di, but it’s hard to say that much actually happens until the very end.

Rage 2 has moments of Good Stupid, but they’re outweighed by moments of Bad Stupid: uninspired and rote enemy encounters, not enouch reasons to use my powers, and a general disdain for its own fiction. For a game about being an overpowered Ranger who can punch people until they explode, I rarely felt powerful. Rage 2 promised me chaos in its lawless world that I alone could save with big guns, super powers, and a bitchin’ car, but by the end, I was still looking for it.

In 2K21, just like we’ve seen for the last few years, every moment of fun on the court is undermined by the racket being run off it.

I’m torn over Travis Strikes Again. I love the specific nostalgia in the story. I find it fascinating that Suda wanted to pay homage to all the creative indie games he loves by including their logos as collectible T-shirts, literally dozens of games including Papers, Please, The Messenger, Hatoful Boyfriend, and many more. I enjoy how Travis, an American otaku, badly mangles the pronunciation of “Itadakimasu” when he sits down for a bowl of ramen, or when he and his cat discuss how these lengthy text sequences are going to tank the game’s Metacritic score. In fact, all of these Suda51 hallmarks are what Travis Strikes Again really has going for it—it’s just the core of the gameplay itself is too thin to pin all this on.

This is quintessential Roiland humor: Drag out something for so long it starts to make the viewer uncomfortable, then drag it out a little longer until they start to uncomfortably laugh, then drive that laughter home with a dash more discomfort—see, now it’s hilarious. But whereas this formula works (mostly) well in a 22-minute-long Rick and Morty episode, by the time I’m several hours into High On Life, every line of dialogue makes it clear that somehow, I am not high enough.

The three protagonists of Last Stop spend much of their respective lives in various states of loneliness, from John’s friendlessness to Donna’s teenage angst to Meena’s “screw everyone” career blinders. By the time the credits roll, no matter what ending you chose, it’s clear these three individuals—who otherwise would have nothing in common and have no reason to interact—have cemented an inextricable bond. You too might’ve felt alone, once or twice or thrice. You might feel that way right now. You don’t need to. You just need to turn the page.

If you’re planning to venture into the magical world of Nine Parchments, heed my words: It’s tedious to go it alone. Take friends. Maybe wear some fireproof gloves.

It’s not the story that shines in State of Decay 2, it’s the sandbox. It’s the small moments that emerge from the gameplay and the world itself that are the most compelling.

Detective Pikachu Returns isn’t setting up a sequel, and while I’m glad to have some closure, I am sad to leave Ryme City. Sometimes I get tired of sending Pokémon out for battle to knock each other out, and I just want to go on adventures with Pikachu by my side. Detective Pikachu Returns is imperfect, but lets me revisit the Pokémon world I’d most like to live in. I hope, even if this is the end of Tim and Pikachu’s story, it’s not the end of The Pokémon Company doing interesting, off-the-wall adventure games that can look at this universe in fresh ways.

Mr. Shifty stands victorious. The carnage was anything but cute, but it sure was satisfying.

It’s tempting to want Wolfenstein: Youngblood to be the rousing third chapter in a terrific revival of a classic franchise, but it’s not. Instead, it’s a fun, off-kilter experiment, a good game about doing good with your friend. Because killing Nazis is good, but it’s much better with friends.

Scarlet and Violet already showed major signs of technical stress, and the bulging seams are even more apparent in The Teal Mask. As much as I enjoyed this DLC, it remains disappointing that some of Pokémon’s best stuff is being dragged down by a game engine that feels like it’s just a slight breeze away from falling apart.